


wait

by sanguinedawns



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Light Angst, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Pining, Post-Time Skip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:00:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29421981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguinedawns/pseuds/sanguinedawns
Summary: There is a line friends keep which discourages them from stepping into puddles of confusing feelings.But, at times, he feels Osamu is stirring him.Do something.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Miya Osamu
Comments: 11
Kudos: 276





	wait

**Author's Note:**

> hey bestie consider this a valentine and a belated bday present T__T sorry my computer shit happened as u know and i lost my og doc lol. anyway, i won't spoil abt the fic itself and leave that for the end notes but here hehe.
> 
> for other haikyuu!! readers i have seen like 12 episodes in 2016 which i have no memory of but i have the power of osmosis and anime on my side. idk shit abt these characters but i did my best from research and general feedback from people who DO love haikyuu but if u see discrepancies in their characters pls excuse it.
> 
> without further ado, here is ya fic. oh thanks k for beta-ing hehe.

Akaashi gathers, he's gained a fine-tuned sense towards certain things; an instinct that’s particular to him. It wasn’t a purposeful development on his part, but it’s something that’s gained momentum over time. An expectedness that he reaches into and relies on. It’s knowing that every morning he’s meant to take the same train, to the same job he’s had for the better part of three years, arrive at the same building where he started on the career ladder. 

There is a comfort to this sort of habit that rides the shape of a monotonous plateau. Because a routine is predictable, it doesn’t catch you off-guard. Perhaps, it’s the same mold of solace he experiences when he watches the screen of his five-year-old macbook dim into grainy pixels, a light scuffing sound coming through the other end, putting together a face he’s learned through these short, inadequate rendezvous. 

Osamu clears his throat, hair flopping over his forehead, “hafta’ excuse me, Keiji, work was a right mess today.”

Akaashi catches the lilting tiredness in the man’s voice, it’s accentuated by the deep circles underneath his eyes. He adjusts the light of the lamp on his desk, and encourages, “Go on, then.”

He picks on the manuscript he’s meant to clean, parts the screen to his laptop down the middle, one side zooming the facetime call, and the other drawing up his ongoing email thread he has with the mangaka, “Atsumu has been quiet again.”

Akaashi’s pencil stops, he blinks at the blurry outline of Osamu’s profile, he’s turned to his side on the bed, “Have you gotten in touch with him?”

“Yah,” Osamu echoes back, scratchy. 

He knows Osamu isn’t looking at the camera, he’s got an arm over his eyes shielding the meager slants of light, but Akaashi still looks straight at him, reassuringly saying, “He could be busy, summer is approaching, you know how busy the national team is this time around.”

“Shouldn’t hafta try this hard to get in touch with my own goddamn brother,” Osamu sparsely complains, it’s a dash amongst the sea of actual worries that he keeps tucked inside. Some that Akaashi has learned, again one of those particularities he’s inclined to know, that say _it’s been too long since i’ve seen atsumu; i’m worried that he’ll always hold a grudge against me for choosing Onigiri Miya over something that meant to both of us, not just one; the wading distance whether it be physical or else seems to keep growing_.

These terrifyingly real possibilities that don’t quell, they don’t even pronounce in the words Osamu chooses time and time over, leans on the trivial, petty, laments that tide him by until the next time Atsumu does something to shake the foundations of their relationship. Akaashi offers a morsel of reprieve, “No, it shouldn’t, but again, this doesn’t mean anything more than what it is.”

Osamu does peel a single eye open to peer at him, Akaashi briefly wonders how he comes on the other side, in the mirrored hues of their respective bedrooms, “He’s probably busy, Miya-san, nothing more than that.”

Adds on, “Until you know for sure it’s more than that there is no use worrying, but if it still plagues you, I don’t see anything wrong with reaching out again.”

The man releases a small sigh, “This is why I keep ya around, Keiji, you’re level headed and see things when they seem all muddled for me.”

Akaashi directs his gaze to the manuscript, tallies the corrections he’s noted in the margins, and obliquely says, voice billowing under the fan of his laptop, “Just that?”

Osamu’s quiet for a parched second, it ricochets in his own throat, but when he speaks it’s similar to a long-awaited flood, “If only.”

  
  
  


This unlikely friendship started sometime after Akaashi was driven out by his old landlord and forced to find a place two stops away from work in a neighborhood he was less familiar with and an arsenal of helping hands. Hinata had come with his tenacious charm, brought along Atsumu’s infectious loyalty and a sturdy compass in the form of Osamu Miya. The three helped him when Akaashi had only really mentioned in passing about his abrupt move to his good friend Shouyou. Come the day he’s meant to fit all his belongings in the nook and crannies of his new apartment he’s welcomed with the presence of his friends and their friends. Kenma arrived fashionably late with the excuse of university lectures and Kuroo joined sometime in the evening when they’d burned enough calories to earn platters of fried chicken--or maybe, they hadn’t, and Akaashi simply reveled in the nature of how things had folded to a shared meal.

Because little else compared.

Since then Osamu kept in touch even when Atsumu flew from one continent to another alongside Hinata. Akaashi didn’t question the unassuming bond they forged, it could be because he had been partial to Onigiri Miya or because Osamu was easy to exist around. There wasn’t pressure to fill spaces and be more than he ought to be. 

He could just _be_.

That was three years ago, now at the cusp of adulthood and all it’s bristled amenities he found that he relied more on these casual chats, these quiet calls, than he had ever imagined himself to. 

Somewhere between the pages he’s marking, the clock turns the hour and the next, he glances at the left side of his screen and is granted the sleeping face of Osamu closer to the camera than it’s been all night. Akaashi can trace the shape of his nose, the peak of his lips, even the shadows left behind his eyelashes. 

He shifts away, a wispy fear trembling the base of his spine. Even in the shrouded muteness of Osamu’s room, in the cloak that stretches from that end to his, he worries he’s done too much. But like a fish hook tugging on it’s inevitable game, he, too, gets drawn back to the sight he won’t allow for more than a few seconds. 

Akaashi steals a moment, and simmers in it.

Three long years it took to create a friendship, and the rest, the falling that he’s done since. Well, who knows. 

What he does know is that he’s got a fine-tuned sense of certain things, one of which is expecting to be the one to be awake long after Osamu has fallen asleep during one of their calls. He expects a messily worded apology in his texts tomorrow morning, but for now he resumes work. 

\--

The email reads an ominous, ill-timed submission date:

_Dearest Mr. Akaashi,_

_We’re responding back in regard to your interest in the position opening in our department. There is an online portal where you can submit your credentials and personal information alongside your CV/resume and we’ll get back to you._

It descends into a more detailed description of the job, and the qualifications that it requires. He reads through the three neatly typed paragraphs once, twice, until he’s drilled the precise image of the person they’re looking for. Which, of course, led to a twenty minute spiral about where he was heading and a healthy dose of imposter syndrome--it’s almost too easy to doubt one’s own abilities then stick to the ground of what you know and bounce from it. 

Akaashi right clicks on the mouse of his work computer, slots away the email into the important folder that he created for urgent dates, and gets back to work. He’s meant to get in touch with the mangaka, a young guy named Yusuke who made a promising debut last year, about the pages he’s meant to receive. For now that could wait, it wasn’t even known and he had about two dozen pages to get through before he could even think about anything else. 

One of the most important things he’s learned from this job is to prioritize, he makes a rough note of sending a message to the author, and pours over the pages he’s got in front of him. Block shaped spreads and a keen eye to words ahead of him. He sloughs away, an inchmeal progress in his books, but by the time their small office is filtering out for lunch he’s done with nearly eleven pages. 

Mishima, one of his coworkers, a few years his senior with a harsher inflection to his tongue, asks if he’d like to join him for a meal. Akaashi politely declines. It isn’t commonplace to dismiss an offer made by a superior, but Akaashi’s been here for over three years, and the close-knit faculty affords him the right to turn these invitations once-in-a-while. 

Today he’s more inclined to sit in front of the bright screen of his monitor, the troublesome email popped open and picking into his brain. Setting the computer into sleep mode he decides, about fifteen minutes into his break, that he’ll swing by the small convenience store one street down from their office building. 

He grabs the essentials: phone, wallets, key fob. 

Akaashi is in the middle of perusing the snacks lined on the shelf when he feels a humming buzz in the pocket of his slacks. Heat in Tokyo is unforgiving at this time of the year. Everyday he contemplates if he should show up to work in cotton shorts and a tank top but then decides against it. So, for now, he’s settling to reach over the frozen food freezer to pick a snack on the shelves that are lined above them. A sluggish crawl to his movements he feels the next buzz amplified. 

Digs out the beat up iPhone 7 that he’s been meaning to replace. What version are they even on now? eleven? Twelve? 

He can’t be bothered checking. His mother had one rule she’s stuck by: if it isn’t broken and does the job then no sense in replacing it. That’s how they got stuck with their twenty-five year old rice cooker that cooks way too starchy rice that seems it’s almost laced with a metallic taste, but it worked which meant the woman wouldn’t be replacing it any time soon. Heck, the thing is a year older than _him_. 

The display screen reads the contact but the preview doesn’t show the message. Just a quaint (3) next to the notification. 

He slides it and opens to the app, and reads.

_i fell asleep again, keiji, one of these days ya hafta get on me ass about that_

_as an apology how wouldja like a special delivery from onigiri miya_

_say, does today work?_

Akaashi feels the cold draft from the freezer seep under the collar of his pinstripe button up. He punches in a response:

_are you serious?_

The speech bubbles pop up almost immediately. Akaashi settles on instant ramen--curry flavored--and a packet of sour gummies. He isn’t a fan of candy, to be fair, but when he’s working on manuscripts he likes something to chew on and the store ran out of the crackers he usually enjoys. 

Osamu replies: _when have i lied to you_

He feels an odd rumbling of warmth in his cheeks, he blames the summer sun that inches into the convenience store through the glass door, and approaches the register. A tiny fan is perched on a stool behind the cashier who lazily chews gum and rings up his things. Akaashi replies after a few minutes, not on purpose, but because he could’ve sworn he had enough change to pay for his things. He settles on the card hidden in one of the sleeves of his wallet and exits the premise. 

Outside he’s met with torpid humidity, it makes the material of his shirt stick to his back, pastes the short strands of his hair to his temples and sneaks sweat underneath the bridge of his glasses. Even so, he can’t find it in him to be bothered right this second.

Through the windows a stream of bruised orange dapples Akaashi’s desk. A colleague of his, Aiko, bids him farewell as he collects the last of his spreads. All twenty-four done. He’s due for the next pages once Monday comes. 

He logs off the computer, loops the strap of his satchel over his head and pushes the wheeled chair into his desk. On his way out of the office he nods at the security guard, he gently smiles and wishes him a good weekend. Glancing at his watch he sees it’s nearly seven, but summer days are long and give him the hopeful disillusion that he’s got plenty of time. 

Akaashi’s commute is uneventful. Thankfully, he’s beaten the evening foot traffic which means he finds an empty seat. The swaying lull of the train puts him in weightless state, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, it’s when he hears the muffled announcement on the speakers about the next stop does he jostle out of it. He clears his throat, a child sitting opposite to him making eye-contact with him, he’s got the national volleyball team’s jersey on and is holding his mother’s hand.

Stamping down on a feathered smile he gets up, fingers tightening around the pole as the train comes to halt, a jerking force that shoves his shoulder into the cold steel, and once it’s stopped fully, he files out onto the platform right behind an older couple. Akaashi feels the grooves on the ground press into the soles of his shoes, blearily blinking at the signs overhead that he has memorized by heart, he shuffles towards the exit. 

The weather has moderately cooled down since the sun is dipping the last of it’s toes into the sky. 

Akaashi fishes out his apartment keys, climbs the stairs because as always the elevator is broken, and this way he can count as exercise even if he and his unused gym membership would say otherwise. Three floors later he’s opening the stairwell door to a quiet hallway. He starts the jog to his apartment, pleasantly surprised at the sight before him.

Osamu is leaning against the wall next to his door, scrolling through his phone, a glossy plastic bag clutched in the other hand.

“You should’ve said you were here.”

The man lifts his head, face dissolving into an easy smile. Akaashi instinctively anticipates the quickening of his heartbeat, “But ya made it, didn’t ya?”

“If I’d known--”

“Tried to come sooner, ya ya,” Osamu rushes behind him, shoulders closing in to his own, he thinks the heat from earlier must be just getting to him because suddenly everything feels warm. Akaashi jiggles the doorknob before it finally gives out, flicks the light on and enters his apartment. Osamu closely followed.

“If you knew then you should’ve messaged me, miya-san,” Akaashi plots his strategic escape, but Osamu latches onto the strap of his bag and tugs. He stumbles backwards, the man berates, “O-sa-mu.”

Enunciating the syllables to his name in the kansai dialect, to which Akaashi has garnered a ginger fondness to. 

“Osamu,” Akaashi manages, albeit the quickly dissipating sensibilities that he usually prides himself for, “If you allow, can I wash up?”

Osamu hums, as if this requires much thought on his part, releasing his hold on him and returning Akaashi's waning breath, “Yer’ gonna take too long, Keiji, the food will get cold.”

“I promise to hurry,” he is already placing distance between them. Osamu flicks a hand and he beelines towards his room. 

Inside he can finally fill the empty spaces of his lungs, mechanically shifting into his routine, unclasping the band of his watch and undoing the buttons to his shirt. The bathroom is attached to the bedroom which means he quickly showers and disposes his dirty clothes into the hamper. Settles into the shorts he wishes he could’ve worn to work, and an old shirt from his day at Fukurōdani Academy. By the time he’s entering the kitchen, Osamu has reheated the beef satay noodles and plated the Onigiri.

Akaashi guesses one of them is seasoned cod roe as he’d specifically requested that one. 

“I’m assuming you’re talking to Atsumu again?”

Osamu draws the creaky chair from the four-person dinner table, and informs, “Called me last night and begged me to visit. He’s back in Ebisu for only a few days and can’t manage without me, yer’ not gonna believe, what he had to say when I asked why he wouldn’t call.”

“That he was busy?” Akaashi lifts the onigiri with kelp simmered in soy sauce first. Osamu frowns, the thick brows ruffling, completely displeased, “Yer’ suppose to guess before gloating, Keiji.”

“Oh, yes,” he blinks, mouth stuffed with food. 

Osamu spills into a raucous laugh, it’s a bit too reminiscent of Atsumu. Akaashi has a theory which requires a few more trials, but the hypothesis states: twins tend to slip into each other’s habits when spending time with one another. Sometimes when Osamu visits after seeing Atsumu he becomes partial to his brother’s somewhat immature habits. 

Like right now as he stubbornly insists that his own suspicions about the lack of communication were just as sound as Akaashi’s rightful evaluation.

Though, admittedly, there are moments where he leans to believe Osamu shows these sides to only him. A comfort, sense of no judgement, that he is able to sink in with Akaashi.

But that could all be wishful thinking, Akaashi inevitably reasons, because it isn’t that he’s not ambitious. Instead it’s the ease he’s found in things he knows of rather than ones that prompt a certain level of vulnerability. Perhaps that’s why that email in his inbox has been stowed away out of sight. 

Osamu catches him in the midst of his fleeing thought, snaps two fingers, “Still with me there, Keiji?”

Akaashi blinks slowly, shoulders slackening and tiredness slipping, “Yeah, I’m here.”

They eat in the dim lighting of his small kitchen. Osamu shoves the bowl of noodles down in a matter of seconds and gets a second helping, Akaashi is slower with his meal, but it’s funny because they’re both appreciative of the taste, the smell, the contentment it invokes. All it tells Akaashi is that the man must’ve been hungry.

Afterwards they settle down to watch an old film, they hardly pay attention as Osamu shares the plans for his shop, how they’re thinking about opening a branch in Tokyo. 

He speaks with a mouthful of heartbeats, “Does this mean you’ll be moving to Tokyo?”

“Yah,” Osamu slouches deeper into the couch, thigh brushing against his, “Need to get everything sorted and running which means I gotta be here.”

“When?” Akaashi fixes his eyes on the screen, it’s a pretty old movie, the quality is grainy and he finds he likes the dressing sense from back then, the nostalgia it carries.

“Late August.”

That’s two months from now, he mentally calculates. 

“That’s quite soon.”

Osamu yawns, head leaning onto his shoulder, and it’s when things are like this Akaashi wagers it’s not all that wishful to wonder if the other man feels the drumming in tune to what’s in his chest. They’ve met a handful of times, including today, but the seamlessness in which they move, a tandem rhythm Akaashi hasn’t been able to extricate and study at depth, leads him to believe he’s not stranded on this island of swollen feelings. 

As if sensing the fracas in his mind, Osamu taps the bare skin of his right knee, “Pickled plum for yer thoughts?”

For some reason he finds himself saying through a small smile, “There’s an opening.” A dryness trickles down his throat, “In the literature department that I’ve wanted to apply for. They sent me the application and details today.”

Osamu sits up, attentive, “Yer’ applyin’ then, aren’t ya?”

“I’m not sure if I’m what they’re looking for,” he says. It isn’t nervous because a part of him realizes Osamu is someone with realized dreams and that should make this conversation all the more harder because his own goals seem far out of reach. But when the man encourages him, in a tone he reserves for those that are dear, and asks, “And why do ya think that, Keiji?”

Akaashi knows he isn’t leaving himself defenseless. 

“I think I’ve wanted this for so long that now the chance to have is here I’m afraid I’m not quite cut out for it, that I lack in experience or expertise,” he relents his gaze to meet Osamu’s warm black eyes that shift in hues of grey, “Like I’m not the right fit.”

Osamu takes personal offense to that, “Didn’t ya work all through college for this? And even now you put in the work day in and out proofreading, editing, communicating with ya superiors, how do ya think yer not cut out for this?”

There is a staggering realization that all this time during their calls, and hangouts, the brief slips, or the long tirades, of work and his life weren’t dismissed and forgotten. That Osamu’s been carefully sieving through the superfluous to collect pieces of Akaashi that he’s chosen to share. 

If it were possible to amplify the reverberation that have become sirens then that’s what occurs, or in other words, all at once, Akaashi is back to veering from those intense eyes and squashing the sprouting emotions in the column of his throat, on the bumpy track of his tongue, on the tip of the muscle that allows for words to be heard. 

He swallows it all and sighs, slouching into a position that could identically mirror Osamu’s, “I guess we’re both moving forward then?”

From the corner of his eyes he catches the smile quirking up Osamu’s lips, “Who woulda thought?”

“Certainly not Atsumu,” he digs with a loud laugh which Akaashi shares.

They finish the movie in companionable silence. Osamu slides his feet into his shoes at the entrance of his apartment and Akaashi asks, “How long are you here for?”

“A week,” Osamu fixes the back of his left shoe, glances at him through thick lashes, “Whatcha’ up to tomorrow?”

Saturdays usually detail late mornings, visiting Kenma in the afternoon, grocery shopping which isn’t more than frozen dinners and instant meals, and catching up on readings. His routine is pretty set. Osamu knows this too, but he extended the courtesy of asking which he returns by saying, “Nothing really, why do you ask?”

“Come with me to see the new place for the branch,” he offers, “We could make a day trip outta it. There is a good curry spot nearby too, if it fancies ya.”

“Good food and good company always fancies me,” he replies, and then backtracks it in his head. But Osamu is already smiling, “Should I come more often then?”

There is a line friends keep which discourages them from stepping into puddles of confusing feelings. 

But, at times, he feels Osamu is stirring him. 

_Do something._

It feels a bit like throwing oil into an already set fire. Osamu steps forward, and reaches out with a hand. Akaashi has to tilt his head a smidgen to cover the distance between them, “Wouldja like that?”

His fingertips lightly skid the loose curls of Akaashi’s hair, it’s dried into waves as it always does after a shower. Akaashi simply replies, “If you want to.”

Osamu laughs, the calloused tips briefly brushing against the spine of his ear as he draws them back, and admits, “Y’know, I didn’t come to Tokyo this time for that pain in the ass.”

Akaashi prompts hanging onto an expectation he told himself he won’t sew, “Then why are you here?”

Osamu shrugs, “I missed ya.”

 _We talk everyday_ , he’s inclined to say. _Don’t give me hope_ , he’s pushing out. But he ends up on, “Then it’s good you’ll be here more starting August.”

Osamu’s grey eyes shift in incandescent delight, “That’s a promise, Akaashi.”

He simmers, “Of what?”

“That yer’ gonna slot your weekends away for yours truly.”

He laughs, shoulders turning in and body shaking. Osamu grins with a salute, door handle twisting, “See ya tomorrow?”

“See you tomorrow.”

Akaashi watches the man exit his quiet, simple apartment, leaving behind abundant warmth and a little else. 

Something really just for him. 

August. He signs off a remainder in the notes of his mind, and waits. He’s hopeful, and he’s happy, and he’s got a wealth of days until Osamu will be here for more than a few hours. 

He can wait. He _will_ wait. 

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> :) there will be a part two dun dun dun. anyway kudos and comments are appreciated.


End file.
